Business Intelligence, can't be that hard to understand, it is just dimensions made up from tables from the OLTP, legacy, or external systems. Utilising Data Warehouse, Data Marts and Business Intelligence Tools to generate reports. How hard can that be?
Let me start with a simple story. Some say that this story originated from China and is a Chinese proverb, others say it is from India and is a folklore. The only difference between whether it is from China or India are the number of participants in the story. I will be using the story from China who has 3 blind men instead of 6, but the context which I will apply to dimensional modeling can be applied with this story.
There were in time, 3 blind men. Each of them were blind from birth and they have never seen, heard or touch an elephant. They have always want to know more about this animal as many stories that they had heard paints the picture of a beautiful, strong and large animal. Some cultures uses this animal to move large objects, some are trained as entertainers, and in some cultures, they are worshiped.
Hearing some of the stories relating to the elephant, the 3 blind men decided that they will need to encounter this animal to validate for themselves the stories that they had heard. Their opportunity came when a circus visited their town. The circus has amongst their entertainers, elephants! So the 3 blind men asked permission to touch the elephant since they are unable to see the elephant.
The day came when the 3 blind men were taken to visit the elephant. The elephant trainer after breifing the 3 blind men, asked all of them to sit whilst he leads each of the men to touch the elephant. Since the 3 blind men want to know the entire animal, the trainer lead each of the men to respective parts of the elephant.
The First Blind Man was led to the elephant legs. The Second Blind Man was led to the tail of the elephnat and finally the Third Blind Man was led to the trunk of the elephant. The excitement was overwelming and they wanted to compare notes to see if all of them fully appreciated how facinating the animal was during their visit.
The First Blind Man stated by saying how he felt that the elephant were like trees, they are firm and round, almost like hugging a tree. The Second Blind Man said that it is really thin with hairs at the end. Seem to be moving a lot and is good to chase flies and finally the Third Blind Man said that it is like a snake, long and bends.
Each of the 3 blind men, described the elephant as to how they had experienced the animal that day. What they did not realised is that each of them had a section of the animal which they understood. However they do not realise that they only had a small view point of the "bigger picture".
This story is so similar to Businesses where feudal system is common in the work place, when most departments have been set with KPI by management to ensure that the department is profitable and efficient, the department heads are only are concerned about their own departments and the sharing of information between departments are not practiced. Terms like lean manufacturing to encourage less wastage is just such an example for the manufacturing department to exercise control and this will be part of the KPI of the organization.
What has the blind men and the elephant and the business world have in common? All have a "snap shot" of their department, and in the story, a section of the animal. If only there was a better way to show the entirety of the organization including sections of the business is that not only related to the department. Understanding the entire business will assist decision makers to make better decisions. If the decision maker were to only concentrate on ONE department, then chances are that this decision could adversely affect the other departments.
Norton and Kaplan in the 90s create the balanced scorecard approach. This approach focuses on 4 perspectives, financial, customer, internal business, and innovation, learning and growth based on the organizational strategy and vision. This approach does not highlight a single department but allow the decision maker to ensure that any decision made needs to be inline firstly with the organization strategy and vision. Next the decision maker will see that their decision could impact other departments using this approach. This approach is therefore useful to organization that would like to ensure that decision made are not based solely for a department but for the organization.
Business Intelligence are tools that organisation can utilise to understand their business. Providing that the systems are built and users uses the system, the Busienss Intelligence tools should be able to paint a better picture for decision makers. There are many vendors and many products, however the key is not the vendors or the products but the understanding of what is required by the organisation based on their strategy and vision. Executives will change over time and so will their requirements. It is key that Business Intelligence Tools continue to evolve and have iterative updates. So with the evolutionary approach along with a full understanding of the organisational strategy and vision, this will ensure that Business Intelligence Tools continues to be a useful tool for decision making.
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